Corpses, Crimes, and Comic Books: Old Testament justice in the horror comics of the '50s [Reason]
Hyper-violent cartoon ghouls didn't create the psychopaths Wertham feared, but instead set kids on a path towards the hippie 60's of peace, love, and harmony. A different kind of delinquent, perhaps?

The list above doesn't include Doctor Strange, but Neilalien says that's a big oversight. Doc is definitely a huge hoarder: all those mystical objects in the Sanctum he "protects", all those great Ditko backgrounds (and foregrounds too).

The Vishanti all died except for Agamotto, who wants his eye back from Strange. Agamotto is going to participate in a magic tournament against Wolverine w/Iron Fist powers to decide the fate of the world. I'm not really kidding either. wtf is this shit?

In a statement, DC Co-Publisher Dan DiDio admitted that the $3.99 price point of individual books had left fans "increasingly reluctant to sample new titles," with "Long term fans... beginning to abandon titles and characters that they'd collected for years."

Retailers Speak on Falling Sales and the Impact of $3.99 Comics [Comics Alliance]

Alan David Doane has been asking retailers for their reactions to the price changes [Trouble With Comics]

No comic in August sold over 100K; $3.99 price blamed [ICv2] [Robot 6]

Bendis is "interested in taking away the things from Doctor Strange that can make him the deus ex machina that everyone worries about him being". Sigh. While a very high power level and/or undefined powers can certainly increase the potential for deus ex machina- and Neilalien's not against some power-level tweaking and power definition- even "street-level" Spider-Man can make anything with his webbing for a deus ex machina instant contrived solution at the end. What makes Doctor Strange a deus ex machina is bad writing! You know, like when Doc showed up at the very end of Bendis' Avengers Disassembled.

But not to worry: "He's still going to be the cool magician with kung-fu skills." Phew, well that's a consolation.

Neilalien believes Bendis is speaking honestly when he says he tremendously likes the Doctor Strange character and this direction- but the way most Doc fans see it, by the time Bendis and his "break the toys" philosophy is done with Doctor Strange, Doc will likely be "broken". No one's advocating that Doctor Strange cannot or should not be changed or challenged- no one wants 50 years trapped in superhero-comics status-quo amber- but we want good changes and challenges. Doc has no more interesting look or uniform, all he has now is a boring black shirt and brown longcoat. Doc has none of the neat trappings or power objects like the Cloak, Eye, etc., that make him much more interesting power-wise than Cyclops. Doc is reduced to a "cool magician with kung-fu skills", through both depowering, and also the apparent stripping away or neglect of the character's core/history/psychology/sensibility/interesting interpretations, such as a lonely battle of personal redemption against horrific cosmic forces. Doc hasn't acted very dignified, competently, charmingly, or cast interesting spells in the years of being written by Bendis. Doc's turned into a nonheroic douchebag via the "pre-emptive-strike" Illuminati and "the choices he's had to make as Sorcerer Supreme" whatever those will turn out to be. Doc won't be Sorcerer Supreme anymore, or to be more accurate and less about undefined mantles, Doc will not be at the top of the Marvel Magic Universe hierarchy. Bendis' big Redemptive Quest story-arc for Doc (quoting another interview) was to have the Eye find his replacement. Doc's had near-zero part of major Marvel Universe events like Civil War- probably for the best- but it suggests that nothing that has prevented Doc from participating in past big events, like a too-high power level, has even been fixed out of all this. Bendis ended another positive thing, the relationship Doc had with Night Nurse from The Oath (New Avengers #57: "used to date"). Doc's beloved and Uncle-Ben-level-death heroically-dead mentor the Ancient One is possibly a villain now. All of these useless changes- and tear-downs of one character for another- have garnered nothing meta for Marvel except a Brother Voodoo series they canceled after five issues. Etc.

That's quite a damning list. Can Bendis please move on to tremendously liking Thor now? Surely Thor will remain "a strong blond guy" by the time Bendis is finished.

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